A Housing Market That’s Hard to Handicap

All I can think about these days is real estate. More specifically, it’s hard to understand whether it’s a seller’s or buyer’s market.?

The answer, unfortunately, may be that it’s neither. Or both. But mostly it depends where you’re looking.

Take Manhattan, where luxury homebuyers are shrugging off bank turmoil and recession fears and finding some value as sellers show a willingness to cut prices. Things are also cooling off 90 miles east in the Hamptons, where home prices posted their first decline since 2019.

In the New York and Boston suburbs, there’s still plenty of demand. And New Yorkers are still moving to Florida.?

San Francisco, which was hit hard by the pandemic after years as one of the most expensive housing markets in the US, is facing unprecedented economic challenges. The banking turmoil dealt yet another blow to the Bay Area’s depressed housing market, scaring off purchasers.

It all adds up to a muddy picture. In the past few months, as banks collapsed, borrowing costs rose and inventory tightened, home sellers, buyers, experts, brokers, journalists and practically everyone else tried to predict the future of the real estate market. Should you lock in a mortgage rate now? Is this a good time to sell? These questions are still relevant.

In general, the Fed’s rate hikes have worked to cool the housing market, at least a bit. But while buyers are seeing prices soften, there’s little inventory in many markets as sellers stay on the sidelines, worried it’s a bad time for properties to hit the market.?

The lack of available housing is a big problem all over the US. New York is trying to tackle the shortage with a new plan by Governor Kathy Hochul, but that’s causing major uproar among local residents. And in California, which has an acute affordability crisis, there are plans to turn an old military base into more than 12,000 homes.

Speaking of NYC real estate, I’ll leave you with the drama surrounding the auction of the Flatiron building, one of the city’s most iconic structures.?

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— Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

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